 |
| Sonny Wagdos broke the Philippine marathon record that his coach, Eduardo Buenavista, previously set 22 years ago. |
MANILA--Philippine athletics legend Eduardo Buenavista found his perfect protege as no less than one of his students broke the national record he previously set for a single full-length marathon.
Sonny Wagdos completed the 42.2-kilometer Tokyo Marathon on Sunday in two hours, 14 minutes, and 32 seconds, about four minutes faster than his coach's previous national record of 2:18:44 in 2004.
Wagdos finished 58th overall in the race that saw five African runners led by Ethiopian champ Tadese Takele clocking in the fastest.
Wagdos was not the only Filipino runner who broke Buenavista's national record, as Richard Salano also finished faster than 2:18, crossing the finish line at 2:15:06, good for 68th overall.
Arlan Arbois was the third-best Filipino runner in Tokyo, finishing at 2:19:57.
While he came barely a minute shy of matching Buenavista's feat, Arbois still ran way faster than his previous major marathon in the Southeast Asian Games, where he finished at 2:30:19, which was good for silver last year in Bangkok.
His Tokyo clocking even eclipsed the previous SEA Games gold medal time of 2:27:33 registered by Indonesia’s Robi Sylanturf, underscoring his steady rise in the region’s long-distance scene.
“I came here prepared to challenge myself. Seeing my time improve this much motivates me to aim higher in the next international races,” Arbois said.
Meanwhile, the Philippine women's record was also reset on Sunday as Artjoy Torregosa finished the Tokyo Marathon at 2:33:48, almost 10 minutes faster than the previous record of 2:43:31 by Mary Tabal in 2016.
Torregosa was 26th overall in the distaff race, won by Kenyan Brigid Kosgei, who broke the Tokyo Marathon record with a 2:14:28 run.
Wagdos and Torregosa were the best-performing Southeast Asian runners in the recent Tokyo Marathon.
Christine Hallasgo finished 43rd overall among the female runners with a time of 2:42:13, way faster than her SEA Games marathon performance.
“I wanted to prove that my SEA Games performance was just the beginning,” she said.
“This result inspires me to train harder and represent the Philippines even better in future competitions.”
As confirmed by the Philippine Sports Commission on Monday, the five current Filipino star marathoners will return to Japan in September as they all qualified for the Asian Games in Nagoya.
